Infax, or the BBC Programme Catalogue, is a wonderful thing. Originally the BBC’s internal documentation for its programmes, last year it was opened up, shut down, and then opened up again, to us filthy outsiders. And it can bring up all kinds of interesting things – for instance, did you know that the first two series of The Fast Show are labelled “DO NOT WIPE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF CHARLIE HIGSON”?

Searching for Red Dwarf provides lots of intriguing information if you’re a production geek; each entry provides information on repeats, and if you reveal the extra detail, gives a list of all model shots in the programme (presumably listed for easy reference, in case the production wanted to reuse a shot). And hey, I get a kick out of knowing that the official BBC programme number for Backwards is NMRJ901F, even if nobody else does. It’s not perfect; sometimes the descriptions are slightly jumbled, and there’s the occasional repeat date which is suspicious, but overall, it’s very interesting.

But that’s the information you’ll get just from searching for Red Dwarf as a programme title – all it’ll do is bring up a list of Dwarf episodes. Searching the descriptions field brings up a whole different list entirely – a list of shows which merely featured Red Dwarf in some way. And what a lovely list it brings up.

Let’s have a glance at some of the more interesting entries, shall we?

In fact, this was actually mentioned on here a while back – although oddly, the Open Airentriesfor the 15th Feb 1988 don’t actually mention Red Dwarf. That’s not to say that Dwarf wasn’t featured in the programme on that date as well, though – Infax can be rather unreliable.

Take Two (1st Jun 1988) – Children’s show about telly programmes. This would be the famed bit with Rob and Doug talking about Red Dwarf, then. We’ve actually got a copy of this – no doubt we’ll upload it at some point.

Daytime Live (6th Jan 1989) – “ITEM 03:Judi SPIERS then talked to Craig CHARLES about his very diverse career – poet, presenter, actor & musician (incs clip of Red Dwarf, episode 5, Queeg tx’d 4/10/88)” Judi Spiers! This gives me a chance to link to The Gus Honeybun Song, as she’s in it. Composed by Ed Welch, don’t you know. In fact, can we stick Gus on the Remastered DVDs?

Parallel 9 (18th July 1992 and 18th Sep 1993) – Very weird SF Saturday morning kids show, which I chiefly remember for them building at the start of one series a long complex assault course in the studio for the planned weekly game… which they promptly never used again, as it was boring shit. Anyway, Craig Charles and Robert LLewellyn are on the first edition mentioned, and Danny John-Jules was on the second – along with Wayne Morris and Kate Lonergan, Marian fans.

Points of View (13th Oct 1993) – Show where viewers send in their letters about BBC programmes, all you non-UK people out there. From the broadcast date, it’ll be about Psirens, broadcast the previous week. A rousing welcome for the return of a much-loved series, or a load of old biddies slagging it off? There’s a later one on 18th Feb 1998, which is presumably about Red Dwarf Night.

Pebble Mill (29th Oct 1993) – ITEM 02:CRAIG CHARLES:Intv re his new song, & video,playing the part of Lister in “Red Dwarf” and about his new book “Craig Charles Almanac of Total Knowledge” (dur 09m10s)” Forget the whoring of his book – what’s all this about Craig’s song? And was it better than Max Bygraves performing a medley later on in the programme?

Live & Kicking (19th Feb 1994) – Chris Barrie guests. The main reason I mention this is that I really hope it was Chris who was forced into doing Trev and Simon’s Star Driving Test. Which, if you don’t remember it, went something like this…

Two’s Comedy (24th Feb 1995) – No idea about this one – is that our Red Dwarf featured there, or not? It’s rather ambiguous, with the talk about sketches, and the added “the”.

The National Lottery Live (5th Nov 1997) – No historical relevance really; I just want to see Craig Charles start the draw. Also, I’m intrigued as to what clip from Red Dwarf they showed – it’s really difficult to take individual scenes from Dwarf, as unlike a lot of sitcoms, it generally stops being funny when taken out-of-context. There’s probably an article in that discussion, but I’ll spare you for now.

Computers Don’t Bite (8th June 1998) – “The stars of Red Dwarf book a holiday on line and a look at ballroom dancing on the World Wide Web.” Oh dear. And yet… I need to see this.

Look North (13th Apr 1999) – Regional news programme, for those of you who aren’t obsessed with regional telly, like me. “traffic drives to cam, HILL ptc driving ms poster “Don’t Drive Like a Twonk, Kill Your Speed” 3 vox pops re what does it mean? – (1) pillock, (2) no idea, (3) idiot intv John STANLEY (Hull City Council) – a twonk is an idiot, derived from Only Fools and Horses, and from Red Dwarf, an in word, an insult ex Red Dwarf – crew in VR mode “drive like twonks” [but not saying the word: wrong half of programme was played up line – 2nd, not 1st!]” So, in short, people didn’t know what twonk meant… and to clear things up, they showed part of Back To Reality that didn’t have the word in. Great.

Culture Fix – Special Effects (29th July 1999) – A programme looking at the “evolution of the art of special effects”, featuring a clip from Red Dwarf. No other info beyond that, and possibly no more than a short mention, but it sounds interesting.

Whatever You Want (13th May 2000 – Ah yes, the show where they gave away a prize to appear as an extra on the movie. I believe this was considered for inclusion on one of the previous DVDs, but it was too expensive to clear. A potential extra for the Movie-if-it-happens DVD, perhaps?

The Last Laugh (19th Mar 2005) – Programme about sitcoms, featuring an interview with Danny John-Jules. No more details than that, although seeing as it’s specifically about sitcoms, it could be rather interesting.

So… the inevitable question is – will any of this make it onto the Remastered DVDs? Well, we can only hope – and rest assured that I have alerted the relevant authorities. But whilst I hope some of the juicy stuff will make it on there (I’m personally really hoping for Open Air), let’s face it, most of it won’t – whether it’s down to rights, disc space, or simply the fact that certain things would only interest five people. (I’m under no illusions that Craig on the National Lottery is worth spending any money at all on.) I think once the Remastered release has been, erm, released, perhaps we should take a look at what hasn’t been included, and try and find it ourselves. Someone out there must have recorded a lot of this stuff.

But, of course, Red Dwarf isn’t the only interesting search term to stick into Infax. In the next part of this article, we’ll be looking at some other “intriguing” “gems”…

No one in the audience knew who they were, let alone Vanessa herself, and the clip they showed before Llewellyn and Lovett came on was from series 8 (SOOOO not funny, but the two stars were there to promote it) and the sound was screwed up so no one could hear it anyway. Just as well, I guess.

Llewellyn and Lovett behaved brilliantly, maturely and answered all the FUCKING stupid questions that were thrown at them.

John, a word has not been invented for what you are… but you are one and a complete and total one at that.

I was ‘about’ to venture outside for the first time in three days. Fat (not Rob Grant’s Fat) chance now.

Btw not sure if it’s listed or not but there was an interview with Craig, Chloe, Rob, Danny and Norm on BBC Breakfast the morning after Back in the Red Part I aired. Infact I’m pretty sure I transcribed the interview for previous incarnation of G&T. I’ve still got it on tape somewhere. It’s pretty bland but the interview gives Danny a ticking off at one point for not letting Chloe speak.

Edit: This IS the best thing ever. Just entered a few of my favourite bands in the description box. I’ve now got the most-likely hopeless task of tracking down Def Leppard’s two appearances on the Old Grey Whistle Test.

I didn’t mention How Do They Do That? because it’s already been released on VII, so I didn’t think it was that important.

I didn’t mention the Breakfast interview because we *did* do a transcript at the time – but actually, I think it’d be nice to host a copy the video on G&T. Any chance of borrowing it at some point, Karl?

That would probably be best. I’d be more than happy to lend you the tape but there’s a very high chance it’s in a box, in a shed, in scotland. Oh and possibly water damaged. So see if Capps has it first.

*sigh* To think I used to be “Friend of the website” Karl Eisenhauer. We won’t see the like of those days again.

Well, I do have it, but the quality is rather questionable. Never the less, expect it to be included in our soon to be launched downlaods section, along with some old BBC2 continuity! Feel free to be completely aroused at the prospect.

Sadly yes. I’m trying to recall what episode it was. I can remember it had the stock-footage from Meltdown in the intro so it would be something from Series Four. I’m not back up that way till easter and I could be imagining it but I’ll definitely dig them out when I can.

I remember the 1998 Points of View! (Although I remembered it being from a year earlier in reference to the first episode of series VII, rather than Red Dwarf Night.) I think someone complained about the canned laughter, to which the response was that the pre-recorded tapes are shown to a live audience whose laughter is recorded.

Just HOW MANY times can people complain about ‘canned’ laughter? The IT Crowd is a more recent casualty of this. It pains me to think that there was even a possibility of scrapping the audience for series 2 (or adding a film effect for that matter). In fact I’m not sure what’s actually happened with series 2 yet.

I keep forgetting about that Linehan/Mathews blog. Graham’s comments on series 2 are promising and I can wait ’till August/whenever if it means it’ll be good (it’s probably a good idea to push it away from the Winter slot series 1 had). At least there’ll be an audience. Getting rid of them would have resulted in a pointless overhaul of the show. The only things that need to change for series 2 are what Graham goes on about in the commentary(s). Although, saying that, if he gets rid of ALL the ‘broad’ ideas in series 2 it might make it less funny.

Although, saying that, if he gets rid of ALL the ?broad? ideas in series 2 it might make it less funny.

This is *exactly* what I’m worried about. I don’t think it’ll really happen, but some of the things Linehan is worried about in Series 1 I think are fantastic – Morris’ “Anyone still suffering from stress at the end of this week… WILL BE FIRED!” is fantastic, yet Linehan doesn’t like it at all…

I have to give praise for this site’s influence on a completely unrelated music website I run. The idea of adding a news blog to our website happened after seeing how well this website reads since it’s relaunch. But equally the creative way in which you search out trivia about your related subject has given us more to write about recently. Links like the infax one and others angles you have taken on Red Dwarf stories, has helped a huge amount in our team coming up with similar for our websites readers. So Cheers.

It’s the longest running active website about the 80’s and beyond
ska/pop band Madness.

But I’ve sent you a longer email John explaining how things like G&T’s
nose through infax and other articles have helped MIS dig up news about
this pop band for our readers. I dont think just visiting the site will
really explain the influence.

I’ll often use headphones whilst surfing when John’s on the Wii, so I don’t disturb his gameplay. I tend to approve of user-activated music; I didn’t hang around on your site because I was already listening to something else.

I’ve only gone and smegging found it. Found what? Well above I mentioned a vague memory that at least one episode of Dwarf jumped channels in Scotland during the repeat run of 1994.

Well I’ve just found proof via the INFAX link above, with minimum effort too! I was looking for the date of Statis Leak’s repeat run for no apparent reason felt possessed to make a few random clicks on other eps, picked ‘Holoship’ at random and LOOK!!!